


circus boy

by marvcltrash



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Canon Disabled Character, Clint Barton-centric, Deaf Clint Barton, Disabled Bucky Barnes, M/M, not sure what au but it's an au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-10
Updated: 2017-06-10
Packaged: 2018-11-12 07:02:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11156727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marvcltrash/pseuds/marvcltrash
Summary: "Two people go on a Ferris wheel alone. Person A is afraid of heights and is dared by friends, while person B loves it. They get stuck at the very top for awhile."prompt by @otpprompts on tumblr





	circus boy

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in less than three collective hours and I am very tired. Big thanks to @the_green_and_gold_journal who acted as beta reader!

The thing about Clint Barton was that, despite being the kind of person who loved crawling around in air ducts and chilling on the very tops of buildings, when it came to barely supported glorified benches two hundred feet in the fucking air, he wasn’t much for heights. It could have been said that his best friend, Natasha Romanov, was a cruel piece of shit when she dared him to go on the Ferris Wheel alone, then, but Clint was too aware of what she could do to him to really say so. The line was short enough that he couldn’t very well say no, and was stuck in line behind some muscular beefcake who was at least half a foot taller than him. Clint wasn’t the type to make small talk with people who could probably break him in half while also in line to one of his biggest fears, so he stayed quiet. 

“Now, sir, I’m afraid that I can’t let you go up alone, so unless you have someone willing to go up with you, I’ll be very sorry to say that I cannot let you on the ride,” the guy managing the ride told the beefcake dude, and Clint cheered silently. He was ecstatic to hear that you couldn’t go up alone; take that Natasha - fuck your shitty best friend antics! Well, he was pleased until Beefcake’s shoulders got all slumped, enough body language to tell that he was real disappointed, and Clint had to open his big fucking mouth. 

“Uh, I’m alone too, and I don’t mind if you don’t,” he offered before he could reign himself in, biting his tongue immediately thereafter.  _ You’re a futzing idiot, Barton _ , he told himself, but the regret was softened when Beefcake turned around and grinned at him. He had some of the biggest brown eyes Clint had even seen, and if he wasn’t already sold by the hip to shoulder ratio, they would have pulled him in. Brown Eyes nodded to the ride manager and the dude shrugged, letting them past and grabbing their tickets as they went by. Clint could feel every regret coming back to him as the ride started going up, not pausing for the next car, their car apparently the last to have been filled. 

“Thanks, man, you didn’t have to do that,” Brown eyes said after maybe five solid seconds of silence, already more talkative that Clint predicted. He thought this was just going to be a two-dudes-who-don’t-know-each-other silence fest, but he was kind of glad for the distraction. He shrugged rather than replying though, unsure of what to say when he couldn’t walk away from whatever awkwardness he was sure to create. “I’m Bucky, by the way - Bucky Barnes,” Brown Eyes - now Bucky - introduced himself, looking a little sheepish. Now that Clint was actually looking at his face, he wasn’t bad on the eyes, with the kind of smile celebrities would kill for and stubble that really worked for him. 

“Clint Barton,” Clint introduced himself as well, returning a genuine smile and the barest edge of a laugh. It turned into the silence he was expecting, though more comfortable than he originally credited the other man with. It became immediately and predictably uncomfortable when the wheel stopped turning right as they came to the very apex of the wheel, causing Clint to hold onto the railings like a child. He looked down and regretted it virtually in the same moment, snapping his eyes back up from the ground, so very far down. 

“Sorry, folks! We’re having some technical difficulties - don’t worry, you’re safe, we just need a few minutes to get the wheel back up and running,” the same manager from earlier called into some sort of microphone, loud enough that they could hear it all the way at the top. Clint didn’t realise he was drifting until Bucky’s hand was in front of his face; it took every bit of restraint he had in him not to take that hand and flip Bucky over his shoulder in a move Natasha showed him a couple of years ago. He tried to use Bucky’s face as a focal point instead, and waited for his fucked up hearing to focus on whatever he was saying. 

“ - come on, Clint, it’s going to be okay. Get it together, Barton,” Bucky said, laying a hand on Clint’s arm in an attempt to keep his attention. Clint nodded along and Bucky stopped, leaving a silence that was not enough for Clint to stay in his head. 

“You don’t know me, but can you do me a huge favour? Can you just keep talking?” Clint asked, not looking away from Bucky’s face. Bucky nodded and started talking, telling him about his ‘best friend, Steve Rogers’ and his sister who was apparently named Becca, and they had two more younger sisters, but Cass was only eight when he left for the military and Jen was only six, so they didn’t remember how he used to be. Part of Clint vaguely wondered what Bucky used to be like, and how it could have been better than what he was like in this moment, but he couldn’t conjure the voice to ask. Bucky moved on to talking about Steve again, filling Clint in on his newest art project like he knew about Steve’s other art projects, and Clint could feel his heart rate coming down. 

“Thank you for your patience, passengers! The wheel will start moving momentarily,” the manager announced, and, true to form, it did. Clint tried not to visibly startle when it moved, but Bucky reached out towards him anyway, careful of any more panic symptoms. Clint laughed despite himself, embarrassed that he’d gone full on panic in front of a fucking stranger, of all people. Worse than the time he panicked in front of Stark. 

“I’m a real fuckin’ mess, ain’t I? Sorry you had to deal with that,” Clint said, rubbing the back of his neck. Bucky was shaking his head almost before Clint was done talking, waving a hand to assuage the worry. 

“I didn’t mind. What made you come on this thing, if you don’t mind me asking? You obviously didn’t come up here on your own volition,” Bucky asked, rightfully so, and Clint sighed. 

“Natasha, she’s who I’m here with. Fuckin’ pit viper,” he answered, huffing a laugh rather than going for the whole thing. Bucky looked strangely disappointed, like he was expecting something else. 

“How long have you guys been together?” Bucky asked, a little bit of a smile back on his face, but nothing like the one before. It took Clint a moment to realise exactly what he was asking, and he snorted. 

“Oh, god no, we’re not together at all. I’m gay as shit and Tasha’s seeing this girl named Wanda and I’m pretending that I don’t know about it so they can feel like they’re sneaking around. I’ve been a sort of older brother figure for Wanda since she started hanging out with us,” he replied, and Bucky perked up again as soon as he said the word... Oh.  _ Oh. _ “Who are you here with?” Clint continued the conversation so he could be sure, but he was pretty sure… he had to be sure. 

“Steve and Becca were too chicken shit to come up here with me, but they’re wandering around together down below. I’d think they were trying to get rid of me to shack up if they weren’t both just as gay as I am,” Bucky said casually, shrugging. It was an obvious statement of prospective availability, and Clint was almost a hundred percent sure now. He would wait for Natasha’s perspective when they got down. 

“Thank you for riding the Ferris Wheel, and thank you for your patience!” the overzealous ride manager said on their way out, and Clint was delighted when Bucky followed him to Natasha. She raised an eyebrow at the human specimen walking beside Clint, but she didn’t directly ask, as her usual code of behavior. 

“He freaked out a little when the ferris wheel stopped, and I’m not sure I want to let him out of my sight yet,” Bucky explained, shrugging one shoulder. Natasha’s face softened a little, her only display of worry, and she nodded succinctly before leading them somewhere - food. Natasha had promised to pay for Clint’s food, no matter what he wanted, if he completed the dare, and he had entirely forgotten. When Bucky didn’t automatically follow after Natasha, Clint grabbed his hand on impulse, pulling him through the crowd. When he looked back at Bucky to check on him, the brunet was grinning, and perhaps blushing a little. 

“We lose sight of you for one minute and you find a new pretty young thing to hold onto?” a voice asked when they finally stopped in a more open space, and it took Clint a moment to realise the voice was talking to Bucky, who was completely red. The girl who said it looked a little like Bucky, so Clint assumed it was Becca, especially seeing as she was closely followed by a smaller blond man. He thought that Bucky had said Steve was blond, but that might have been a trick of the mind; he went with it, at the time. 

“Wow, Buck, you really do work fast,” assumably Steve said, looking pointedly down at their hands. Still, neither of them let go, though both of them were surely a dazzling red by now, if Bucky’s complexion and history of Clint’s were anything to go by. Natasha moved between the two of them that she knew and Bucky’s sister, raising a suspicious eyebrow. 

“Something going on here that I’m not aware of?” she asked in her deadpan way, which barely made it sound like a question at all. Becca, seemingly struck silent by Natasha’s boldness or her beauty, nodded, and Steve did as well, equally silent. 

“That’s my little sister, and my no good best friend,” Bucky said with a laugh, confirming the identity of assumably Steve, and he still didn’t let go of Clint’s hand. Okay, so Clint was lingering on it, who could blame him? A  _ really  _ attractive dude was holding his hand. Natasha nodded and moved out of the way, walking over to the food without a word. It was only natural for all of them to follow her, also with no words between the lot of them. Natasha Romanov was a force of nature, and Clint was only glad it was affecting someone besides him and Wanda for once. No one spoke until everyone had food, and there was a moment of silence even then. Bucky still didn’t let go of Clint’s hand. 

“So… what exactly is going on here?” Steve broke the silence eventually, looking between Bucky and Clint. Both Bucky and Clint shrugged nearly immediately and almost at the same time without looking at each other in the slightest. Clint snorted and Bucky laughed, but neither of them actually answered. Clint was eating with his right hand even though he was left handed, and Bucky was eating with a shining left hand prosthetic that Clint just hadn’t bothered to ask about. He didn’t really have any right, and he was only marginally a naturally curious person. Also, there were some things you just didn’t need to know about someone. 

“Seriously? No actual answer?” Becca asked, sounding just this side of indignant and surely sloping that way. Bucky shrugged again while Clint just didn’t reply at all, eating his gross fried food in relative peace like the good American boy he was. “I’m going to kill you in your fucking sleep, James,” she said beneath her breath, and Bucky snorted. If Clint was a regular person, he might have been slightly freaked out that that was something to laugh about, but Natasha Romanov was his best friend, and he had thrown her a surprise birthday party every year since they met. 

“Barton, answers,” Natasha ordered simply, and Clint was quickly compelled to comply, breathing out through his nose. 

“I grabbed his hand to drag him after you and neither of us have let go, presumably because it’s nice. I’ll let you know if anything further transpires,” he responded, looking back down at his food immediately thereafter. Becca and Steve were staring at Natasha with some sort of awe, but Clint didn’t notice because Bucky squeezed his hand, as if to reassure him. This was already compromising Clint, but he couldn’t find it in himself to want to make it different. It wasn’t a bad thing, he and Natasha weren’t agents anymore, he could be as compromised as he wanted to be. Bucky leaned closer to him, nearly touching. 

“We should go talk, no?” he whispered, and Clint nodded. Bucky pulled him up from his seat, pulling him along to some quiet corner of the circus. He and Natasha had come in an attempt to wash out his old memories, to make places like this clean again, and meeting Bucky may have worked, a little. He could still feel being cast out by his own brother, arrows scars in his shoulders, but he could feel Bucky’s hand in his as well. “Okay, so… what’s going on? Not like, us, but what just went on with Natasha?” Bucky asked, first concerned with what didn’t concern him. It was an endearing quality. 

“The first priority of our whole friendship is trust and truth. She asks, I answer, no matter what it is or how much I do not want to. That’s why I don’t ask about the Wanda thing, so she won’t have to answer, you know?” Clint blabbered, not actually expecting Bucky to answer the question, but Bucky nodded anyway. An endearing quality. The first bit was the most boiled down version of  _ We were spies together and lies are worse than bullet wounds _ that Clint could think of on the spot. “So what is going on with us, though? Because you’re definitely still holding my hand, and I definitely still don’t mind,” Clint changed the subject, attempting to be even the slightest bit suave. 

“I - Whatever you want to be going on here, I guess. You’re really cute, but you’re really cool too, so I’m down to go on a date and try it out or be friends, or whatever? Just, whatever you want,” Bucky rubbed the back of his neck, and Clint chuckled. 

“Would this count as our first date? I mean, we got food and you’re holding my hand. That’s like two for two on first date requirements,” Clint said suggestively, wiggling his eyebrows at Bucky, who laughed. 

“What about a goodnight kiss?” Bucky replied in an equally suggestive manner. 

“Stay with me til the end of the night and you’ll find out.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
